The Arab World and Western Intelligence: Analysing the Middle East, 1956-1981

Dina Rezk

Abstract

This book addresses a critical question embedded within a heated debate about the ‘failure’ of American intelligence in a post 9/11 age: have Western experts in some fundamental way failed to understand the dynamics, leaders and culture of the Middle East? Looking back in recent history through a series of seminal case studies culminating in Sadat’s dramatic assassination, this monograph explores whether, how and why the most knowledgeable and powerful intelligence agencies in the world have been so notoriously caught off guard in this region.
The story begins after the tripartite invasion of ... More

This book addresses a critical question embedded within a heated debate about the ‘failure’ of American intelligence in a post 9/11 age: have Western experts in some fundamental way failed to understand the dynamics, leaders and culture of the Middle East? Looking back in recent history through a series of seminal case studies culminating in Sadat’s dramatic assassination, this monograph explores whether, how and why the most knowledgeable and powerful intelligence agencies in the world have been so notoriously caught off guard in this region.
The story begins after the tripartite invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956 which triggered a ripple of ideological and geopolitical transformations that continue to shape the politics and borders of the modern Middle East. Revolutions swept across Syria, Iraq and Yemen; the three devastating Arab-Israeli wars ravaged the holy lands; and finally, a fraught and contested bilateral treaty bound Egypt and Israel to uneasy peace. The West and the Soviet Union vied for control over the Middle East’s destiny through its political centre, Egypt. The transition from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar el Sadat witnessed the decline of an ardently anti-imperialist Arab nationalism, supplanted by a radical quest to realign Egypt’s identity towards the Western world.
As revolutionary turmoil and conflict continue to unfold throughout the Middle East today, The Arab World and Western Intelligence is the untold story of how the British and American intelligence services have anticipated and reacted to crisis and upheaval in the region’s recent history.